¡Hola Papi!: I Caught My Manager On Grindr. Should I Tell His Wife?

Welcome to ¡Hola Papi!, the preeminent advice column by John Paul Brammer, a Twitter-addled gay Mexican with chronic anxiety who thinks he can fix your life. If you’re a queer person facing a dilemma — maybe you’re thinking about dumping your partner (they forgot your birthday), fighting with your roommate (they never pitch in for groceries), or being haunted by a gay ghost in your attic (the screams won’t stop and the cleansing ritual has failed) — we’ve got you covered.

If you need advice, send him a question at holapapi@condenast.com. Be sure to begin your letter with “Hola Papi!” It’s part of the whole deal.

¡Hola Papi!

I work in a corporate office for a large company, and I’m the only person who reports to my manager. We’re a small team and our personalities click pretty well, so my manager and I have a tight working relationship and a closer-than-average personal relationship in spite of our age difference (I’m mid-20s, he’s mid-50s).

Here’s the thing: I recently opened Grindr at work (something I regularly do) and noticed a new person with no photo or info listed except for his age. The app listed this person as nine feet away from me. Curious as to who this might be, I walked around the floor to triangulate this person, and it looked like it could be one of two people — one being my manager. And the profile age matched my manager’s age!

A little suspect, I starred the profile. The next week, I attended an offsite meeting at my manager’s house, which is in a low-density suburban area. When I arrived (I was the first one there), I opened Grindr. The same profile had been online 20 minutes before and was now 12 feet away.

I’m sure this profile is my manager, and I feel incredibly awkward about it. While I haven’t messaged the profile, it feels odd to know that my (presumably) happily married manager is on Grindr. I cannot stop thinking about it. Do I say something? Do I shut up? Help me, Papi.

Best,Grindr Findr

Hi, Findr!

If your boss isn’t messaging you, and if the situation isn’t impacting your daily grind (ha!), then his anonymous profile isn’t your business and you shouldn’t bring it up. Thanks for your question!

Now, please enjoy this interview I conducted with noted bee expert Gwen Pearson of Purdue University. I am very concerned about bees, as I read somewhere that they are dying, and she knows a lot about bees.

I need to know more about bees. I have been thinking about them a lot lately. First and foremost, are the bees really dying?

Well, which bees?

Oh, shit.

Everybody is super worried about honey bees, and honey bees are going to be fine. They’re a global species. They’re domesticated. They are not native to the United States, in fact. They were brought over when the Europeans invaded.

Oh my God. They’re colonists?

Exactly, yes.

Wow. And they had my sympathy for the longest time.

OK. In terms of native bees, our best estimate is that there are about 3,999 American bees that are native and not introduced species. Honey bees are of a concern because they are some people’s livelihood. So it’s not good — I’m sorry, Is someone being throttled wherever you are? What is that sound?

Don’t worry about it.

Just wondering.

Ignore it.

So, yeah. There is big concern for honey bees. They are experiencing 30 percent losses. If you worked a dairy farm and 30 percent of your cows died, that would be a big deal. So it’s definitely a problem, mostly for beekeepers.

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But what we’re learning, and this is a good thing, is that native bees are great at pollinating. They’re the ones we should be spending more time thinking about. So, like, the squash bee. Squash is native to the United States. And squash bees are super cute! For all we hear about the honey bees, we could be focusing on these other bees.

Do these other bees just have really bad PR or something?

It’s more that if bees aren’t something you deal with in your everyday, it’s not something you think about. Another thing is a lot of people confuse bees and wasps, and no one likes wasps.

Yes, speak on it.

I mean, they’re useful.

Can’t. Stand. Wasps.

[Gwen tries to say something important]

Aren’t wasps, like, most of life on earth or something ridiculous like that? There are so many species. I read this. I’m very upset.

I think you’re thinking of insects in general.

OK.

There are more species of insects than any other animal. The reason for that — so many names, so many species — varies. Obviously, people are pulling them out of their asses every day, because we can’t count them all. But it’s a very clinical ass-pulling. Oh God, you’re going to print that, aren’t you?

Maybe.

It’s scientific estimating that we… OK. I’m giving up.

Enough small talk. Who is killing the bees? Is it us? Is it we?

Well, kind of. We spend a lot of time making our grass look perfect with chemicals and for a lot of the bees, any flavor of bees, that’s bad. What blows a lot of people’s minds when I talk about it is that a majority of bees on earth are solitary bees. They do not live in hives. They are hardworking single moms.

Wow.

They come out of cocoons, they mate, the males die, and the female builds a little nest for the baby bees.

Aw!

I know! It’s adorable. Like the leafcutter bee builds a tube out of leaves. The single mom bee goes around and gathers all the materials the babies need to turn into adults.

These are also dying?

They really like stems and the sort of stuff we pick up off our yard and get rid of. So they’re in some trouble.

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